IN Magazine: September/October 2020

CELEBRATING CANADA’S LGBTQ2

LIFESTYLE

SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2020

LET’S TALK ABOUT TRANS CHARACTERS ON FILM HOW COVID-19 HURT QUEER PEOPLE MUCH MORE THAN STRAIGHT PEOPLE

THE LGBTQ DEBT TO THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT 1

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PERIODT (pe·ri·odt)

A variant of period, periodt is an interjection used to signal the end of a discussion or to emphasize a point. It usually occurs at the end of a statement or in the phrase.

SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2020

Mint Media’s most recent video campaign was nothing short of a queer masterpiece, periodt.

LGBTQ2+ MARKETING

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inmagazine.ca PUBLISHER Patricia Salib GUEST EDITOR Christopher Turner ART DIRECTOR Georges Sarkis COPY EDITOR Ruth Hanley SENIOR WRITERS Paul Gallant, Jumol Royes CONTRIBUTORS Bobby Box, Maria Chowdhery, Connor Davenport, Adriana Ermter, Bianca Guzzo, Courtney Hardwick, Karen Kwan, Paul Langill, Olivia Nuamah, Ivan Otis, Paul Peirera, Scott Starace, Arsenio Tungol, S.W. Underwood, Julia Valente, Doug Wallace, Casey Williams, Adam Zivo DIRECTOR OF MARKETING AND SPONSORSHIPS Bradley Blaylock

SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2020

CONTROLLER Jackie Zhao

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CONTENTS

Photo by Patrik Larsson

96 Issue 96

A recent Nielsen study took a look at gamers’ habits and buying powers and found that 10 per cent of all gamers over the age of 18 identify as LGBTQ+. So where are all the inclusive games?

September / October 2020 INFRONT

FEATURES

06 | TAKE A VIRTUAL TEST DRIVE Trying before making an online purchase of the latest lipstick, beard oil and boxed hair colour is becoming the new shopping norm

14 | MY SISTER’S HAVING MY BABY A personal tale of family, surrogacy, and access to fertility care for LGBTQI+ intended parents

08 | DAILY DOSE Multivitamins may not be the answer – but these six supplements are

16 | SOMETHING HAS TO BREAK Reaching the end of your rope is often the only way things can get better

09 | THE ONTARIO AIDS NETWORK (OAN): HISTORY AND MEMBERSHIP Learn more about the work that the OAN is doing for our community

18 | PERFECT FIT: A BUTT TOY BUYING GUIDE If you can’t love your bum, how is it going to love somebody else?

10 | FOLLOW THESE SIMPLE TIPS TO TAKE THE STRESS OUT OF BUYING A NEW CAR In the market? Take the plunge!

20 | LET’S TALK ABOUT TRANS CHARACTERS ON FILM We dig into the progression of trans characters in movies and TV, and how they’ve changed from being comedic punchlines, to victims, to main characters

11 | GET ORGANIZED WITH REXALL’S NEW HEALTH & WELLNESS REWARDS APP, BE WELL™ Keep better track of your wellness journey, and earn points on purchases 13 | PROFILE IN YOUTH: LILY OVERACKER AND LAURELL PALLOT Meet the recent high school graduates who organized a virtual prom for LGBTQ2S+ students across Alberta

22 | THE LGBTQ DEBT TO THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT Racialized communities have played a crucial role in the fight for LGBTQ liberation; let’s not forget that 40 | NICK STRACENER BEATS HIS BLUES We sit down with the DJ and remixer

46 | HOW COVID-19 HURT QUEER PEOPLE MUCH MORE THAN IT DID STRAIGHT PEOPLE A snapshot of how COVID-19 impacted the LGBTQ community 48 | WHERE IN THE WORLD? Re-evaluating your priorities is the first step to getting travel back on the calendar 52 | THAI ISLANDS: OFF-THE-BEATEN PATH FOR QUEER TRAVELLERS Recharge your mind, body and soul in a queerfriendly setting 54 | FLASHBACK: SEPTEMBER 13, 1977 IN LGBTQ HISTORY ABC’s campy Soap makes its television debut FASHION 26 | ELIAD COHEN GETS PHYSICAL IN MASSBRANDED The Israeli model and entrepreneur/party wizard has a new capsule collection 28 | NEW RULES With Canada’s provinces continuing to reopen their economies, life is starting over with a new set of style rules

42 | GAY CONSERVATIVES ARE VALID AND COULD BE A POWERFUL ASSET FOR RIGHTS ADVOCACY Popular narratives around gay conservatives just don’t get them

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LOOKING GOOD

Ta ke A V i r t u a l Te s t D r i ve

Trying before making an online purchase of the latest lipstick, beard oil and boxed hair colour is becoming the new shopping norm

SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2020

By Adriana Ermter

Been duped by an eyeshadow shade that looked taupe in the package, yet transformed into Barney purple on your lids? Or maybe the aftershave lotion you patted on felt more like a thousand wasps stinging your face than the soothing calm the label promised.

It happens. When you’ve spent a lifetime slathering, lathering, rubbing, spritzing or sweeping beauty and grooming products on from head to toe, there’s bound to be a mishap or two. And yet, year after year, this margin of error has consistently decreased as in-store testers, cosmetics makeovers, mini facials and more have guaranteed a product’s success. Or at least they did.

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Courtesy of the global pandemic, store shelves have been sanitized of communal makeup, cosmetics and hair brushes, not to mention free-for-all jars, palettes and tubes, causing the favoured trybefore-you-buy practice to come to a full stop. Now, with the new look-but-don’t-touch policies firmly in place, test driving the latest wrinkle-blasting face cream or the right shade of eyebrow pomade has become virtually…possible. Literally speaking, that is. The US$500 billion per year global beauty and grooming industry has revolutionized its services to include a series of tech tools that let you shop online the same way you would in person.

more – all while answering your questions about product ingredients, application and benefits. The online experience aims to replicate all that. “The ultimate goal is for consumers to have the same feeling online as if they were having an in-person consultation with a beauty advisor,” says Moreau. “This is particularly important since everyone’s skin [and hair and body, etc.] is different and we need to make personalized recommendations.”

Frequently associated with the gaming industry (think virtual games that can be played with friends without ever needing to be In most cases, the e-tailer’s brain, a.k.a. its AI, will make these in the same room or house, such as Fortnite, Minecraft, NHL or recommendations for you, inclusive of additional items you may Call of Duty), immersive, computer-generated experiences can need. AR, on the other hand, lets you actually try on the Fenty empower consumers to try out new skin and haircare treatments Beauty Slip Shine Sheer Shiny Lipstick in “Cookies & Cocoa,” without ever having to break the seal on an actual product. And like empowering you to actually see how its shimmery rose, woody the Groupe Marcelle’s beauty and grooming labels Marcelle, Lise hue complements your complexion, while VR lets you explore the Watier, Annabelle and CW Beggs, most retailers are in the process warm fruity floral blend in Marc Jacobs’ “Perfect” eau. of or have already integrated high-tech, artificial intelligence (AI), augmented reality (AR) and/or virtual reality (VR) into their e-tail “Our guests can try on thousands of products across multiple sites – all to provide consumers with in-store-like, salesperson- beauty categories, including foundation, lipstick, blush, mascara, guided encounters with just the click of a mouse. eyeshadow, eyeliner and, now, false eyelashes and hair colour, just as they would in real life,” adds Bhatt. “With new products You can thank COVID-19. With consumers unable to physically added weekly, guests can binge swatch items they may not have touch and apply glosses, lotions, gels and more (and who knows how otherwise tried before and they can purchase directly from the app, long that will last), retailers have had to up their experiential ante, allowing for a truly seamless and convenient experience. Today’s and quickly. “Beauty [and grooming] enthusiasts enjoy discovery consumers are more tech-driven than ever before.” when shopping and, in our industry, that includes swatching and sampling testers,” explains Prama Bhatt, chief digital officer for No wonder, especially since COVID-19’s imposed health- and Ulta Beauty. “With testers on ‘display’ only, AI and AR experiences hygiene-based security measures have turned everyone and their are becoming increasingly popular.” grandmother into an online shopper. According to McKinsey & Company’s recent Global Consumer and Global Consumer Pulse To be clear, these innovations in smart shopping are not about surveys, online beauty and grooming sales skyrocketed this year simply dragging and dropping the staple items you buy on a regular from March onwards, and there’s no end in sight to this trend. As basis, like your favourite shower gel or unscented antiperspirant, industry players continue to prioritize digital channels and their use into a virtual shopping cart from the comfort of your living room. of artificial intelligence for testing, discovery and customization, You’ve been doing that since bigwig e-tailers like Sephora and they will surely continue to capture and convert the attention of Ulta Beauty first started peddling their web-based wares online their customers. in the late ’90s. No, this is about thoroughly exploring the skin, hair, body, fragrance or cosmetic items you’re coveting to ensure Not to mention, reap the rewards. Zalando, Europe’s largest they’re a solid investment without every actually touching or fashion and lifestyle e-commerce site, reported 300 per cent growth sampling the product. from 2019. Sephora’s US online sales are reportedly up 30 per cent for the same period. Amazon has seen an increase of 65 per “That includes swatching and sampling testers,” says Bhatt. “Testers cent for bath and body, 172 per cent for hair colour and 218 per are only on ‘display’ now, so AI and AR experiences like Ulta’s cent for nail care product sales. Forbes has even noted that Ulta GLAMlab, where guests can virtually try on [different colours Beauty – who, along with their AI, AR and VR technologies, also of makeup], are a safe, convenient and fun alternative to testers.” have an app where they offer consumers free, private, real-time video consultations with a beauty advisor – saw a 100 per cent It’s easy, too, and only requires you to go online in search of your e-commerce sales increase from last year, and it’s only growing. next must-have product. Once you’ve found it, AI has gathered The beauty behemoth is expanding into Canada in 2021, complete enough information about your shopping habits and preferences to with brick and mortar and a Canadian e-tail site providing all the create a bespoke beauty and grooming shopping experience for you. virtual high-tech benefits as its American counterpart. “Virtual try-on, even in store, will become mainstream,” predicts Moreau.

In real life, the store’s salesperson would do this for you, inclusive of walking you through the beauty and grooming aisles, asking And if you like what you “tried” and saw staring back at you in questions about your shaving habits, the last time you had your the virtual mirror, owning said item only takes a click and a bag hair cut or coloured, your daily grooming routine, your budget and drop to be yours.

ADRIANA ERMTER is a Toronto-based, lifestyle-magazine pro who has travelled the globe writing about must-spritz fragrances, child poverty, beauty and grooming.

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LOOKING GOOD

“All beauty and grooming e-commerce websites are going there,” affirms Vanessa Moreau, the e-commerce manager for Groupe Marcelle, based in Montreal. “It’s not a question of who or why.

It’s a question of when and how much. Technology can guide consumers in their purchases with relevant content and products.

It can even mimic an in-store tester.”

HEALTH & WELLNESS

DAILY DOSE Multivitamins may not be the answer – but these six supplements are

By Karen Kwan

Is taking a daily multivitamin one of your healthy habits? In fact, it’s far better to try to get your vitamins and minerals from food sources, and there is research indicating that multivitamins may not be doing much for your overall health. When it comes to taking supplements, focus on specific ones recommended by health experts. These six are a solid foundation for supplementation.

Calcium A huge number of Canadians (as much as 87 per cent of adult women!) do not get enough calcium in our diets. This mineral is essential for maintaining strong bones and teeth, and it becomes even more important to get enough calcium once we start to lose bone density as we age. Adults need 1,000 mg daily; those over age 50 should get 1,200 mg daily. Prioritize consuming food sources of calcium, but a calcium supplement is a smart way to ensure you’re getting enough daily.

SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2020

Vitamin D Vitamin D helps your body to absorb calcium and keep your bones strong. It can be difficult to consume in adequate quantities from food sources, so supplementing is a smart move. Although your body does synthesize vitamin D when exposed to sunshine, don’t forget that you should minimize your sun exposure. Healthy adults between the ages of 19 and 50 need 400-1000 IU a day, according to Osteoporosis Canada.

Iron If you consume red meat regularly, you likely get enough iron in your diet, but if you’re on a restricted diet (or if your iron levels are being impacted by other factors such as being pregnant or menstruating), pay attention to your iron levels.

Iron contributes to your body producing hemoglobin, which is the part of the red blood cells that brings oxygen through your body. Men and post-menopausal women need 8 mg a day, while pre-menopausal women should get 18 mg daily.

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B12 Vitamin B12 works on the health of your brain and nerves, and also on synthesizing DNA and red blood cells. It’s a watersoluble nutrient that’s found in many animal proteins. Although many of us meet our needs through diet, some health conditions (including celiac disease, Grave’s disease and Crohn’s) are linked to deficiencies of this vitamin. Also, if you’re on a vegan diet, you’re not consuming popular sources of B12, such as eggs, dairy, meat and fish. HealthLink BC recommends 2.4 mcg daily of vitamin B12 if you’re aged 14-70.

Magnesium Magnesium is important for bone health, energy levels and sleep, and adults often don’t consume enough of this essential nutrient in their diet. Check what your multivitamin provides in terms of magnesium; if you’re taking it as a standalone supplement, the US National Institutes of Health recommends 310-320 mg for women daily, and 400-420 mg for men.

Zinc You hear a lot about vitamin C when it comes to the common cold, but there’s little research that shows its benefits at helping you when you’re sneezing and congested. Zinc, on the other hand, has been found in studies to help shorten the duration of your cold. Start taking zinc as soon as you feel the sniffles coming on, and you can look forward both to being sick for less time and having less severe symptoms. The recommended daily allowance for zinc is 8 mg.

KAREN KWAN is a freelance health, travel and lifestyle writer based in Toronto.

Follow her on Twitter at @healthswellness and on Instagram at @healthandswellness.

HEALTH & WELLNESS

The Ontario AIDS Network (OAN): History and Membership

Learn more about the work that the OAN is doing for our community The OAN supports a diverse network of community-based organizations serving people living with HIV across the province.

Formed at the height of the AIDS crisis in 1986, the OAN was created to increase the advocacy, information-sharing and peer support needed to address Ontario’s complex HIV epidemic.

Today, our network of 45 members, affiliates and partners plays an essential role in Ontario’s HIV response. We provide skills development and advocacy to make sure people living with HIV get the care and service they need and that the voice of Ontario’s HIV sector is heard. Part of this work includes leadership programs like our Positive Leadership Development Institute (PLDI).

The Positive Leadership Development Institute With the support of ViiV Healthcare Canada, the PLDI creates diverse and inclusive networks of people living with HIV and prepares them to participate in and influence policy, programs and services within their local HIV sector. During a retreat-style gathering, students learn to realize their distinct leadership potential and expand their network by connecting • and mentoring others also living with HIV. The program with • is delivered thanks to additional support from the Public Health Agency of Canada and Federated Health Charities.

Our seat at the table: Creating the PLDI We wanted to see more people living with HIV involved as leaders and key decision-makers influencing local policies, services and programs. Our goal was to create a safe space where people living with HIV could come together to support each other and develop themselves as emerging, visible leaders raising their voices locally and beyond.

In 2006, the PLDI program was born. Since then, it has grown in size and impact, expanding through partnerships in BC and Quebec. Today, nearly 1,000 people from across the country have graduated from the program and have gone on to paid employment, board of director positions and peer navigator roles.

services and programs, and are encouraged to draw from that lived experience as they grow into local leadership and mentoring roles.

What we know for sure is that under supportive and empowering conditions, people living with HIV – including PLDI graduates and those within their networks – are likelier to engage healthcare providers and other wellness and social services, and, most importantly, to receive and continue HIV treatment.

Nothing about us without us: PLDI program benefits Drawing from the history and evolution of the global and Canadian HIV/AIDS response, PLDI participants develop the skills needed to identify and address the social and systemic barriers that too often limit a person’s access to care and HIV treatment, learning to identify opportunities to get involved and make change.

Over the program’s past three years, participants have shown measurable increase in peer-to-peer leadership skills, applying those skills in their engagements with their local community.

This includes roles on the board of their local AIDS service organization. What’s more, each year, more participants report improved access to health and social services.

Keeping connected during COVID-19 The arrival of COVID-19 sparked a fury of conversations and activity about how to support graduates throughout the pandemic. We began hosting national, virtual check-ins where PLDI graduates can connect, support one another, and talk about how to keep their work going. Now, six months into the pandemic, we are working to develop new COVID-19-specific virtual workshops focused on delivering the skills and support our graduates need right now.

What’s next for the OAN? As the OAN continues to support PLDI students and graduates, and our members, we are also strengthening our commitments to Anti-Black Racism, Anti-Indigenous Racism and Reconciliation.

The importance of peer experience A peer-led program, the PLDI supports a diverse community of people living with HIV, each with their own unique lived experiences, to influence their community. Throughout the program, participants build resilience while cultivating leadership skills that align with their strengths and personal goals. Ongoing participation in the program reduces social isolation by increasing peer-to-peer social support through friendship and mutual understanding of what it’s like to live with HIV.

We know what needs to be done to halt new transmissions of HIV and to ensure the health of people living with HIV. That said, we must continue advocating for a well-funded and coordinated response that includes peer engagement programs like PLDI, as well as equitable policy and integrated services across healthcare and wellness providers.

Graduates and students are empowered to view their experiences as a person living with HIV as valuable and vital to informing

Visit the OAN’s website (oan.red) to learn more about their work and the PLDI program.

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WHEELS

FOLLOW THESE SIMPLE TIPS TO TAKE THE STRESS OUT OF BUYING A NEW CAR In the market? Take the plunge!

By Casey Williams

I review cars, and enjoy driving them, but I do not relish buying them. It always seems so stressful: deciding what you want, determining a fair price, and confirming that the automaker and dealer are LGBTQ-friendly. It could give a queen nightmares, but here are some simple tips to take some stress out of buying a car.

SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2020

Determine your budget Before you go any further, add up all of your monthly expenses (housing, food, utilities, clothes, liquor, beer, cologne) and calculate what payment you can comfortably afford (or how much of your savings can depart). Be honest: there’s nothing worse than being saddled with a payment that elicits monthly stomach cramps.

What do you need/want?

I want a Corvette, but with a daughter, husband and two cats, I need a crossover. How are you going to use your vehicle? Is it just a weekend toy for fun in the sun or will you pull a boat to water?

And don’t just think about today, but also several years into the future. You don’t want to outgrow the cute little crossover or decide to adopt kids while paying off a red Miata.

Do your homework Start with online sites that will help you narrow down the vehicle type, brand and price. Even if you already know what you want, sites can help determine a fair new vehicle price and value your used car. If you find a vehicle you love, but don’t love the price, consider certified pre-owned or an earlier model with low miles.

Some good sites include canadianblackbook.com, autotrader.ca, vmrcanada.com and guideautoweb.com. Consumer Reports, J.D. Power and automaker websites are also good sources.

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Take the test drive It’s easy to buy cars online today, but don’t skip the test drive.

Schedule an appointment to avoid lengthy delays at the dealership.

On the drive, pay attention to how the car rides, steers and brakes.

Is the performance to your liking? Do you feel comfortable? If you have a kid, take the safety seat along. Is it easy to connect?

Do pets and outdoor gear fit? Listen for strange noises. Move on if you can’t imagine enjoying it for many years.

Focus on price, not payment Don’t let dealers divert your attention away from the price you’re ultimately paying or extend payments beyond 60 months. It is best to get pre-approved for a loan from your bank or credit union.

Dealers can often offer better rates through in-house financing, but go prepared. Never get emotionally attached; walk away if you must. There will always be other dealers and vehicles.

Buy from “family” My family drives a Subaru, mainly because it is a good car, but also because the automaker is sincere in its outreach to the LGBTQ community. These days, almost all automakers sponsor PRIDE events and welcome LGBTQ buyers, but check local LGBTQ publications for dealer advertisements and liaisons as clues. Do business with somebody who appreciates you.

CASEY WILLIAMS is a contributing writer for Gaywheels.com. He contributes to the New York-based LGBT magazine Metrosource and the Chicago Tribune. He and his husband live in Indianapolis, where Williams contributes videos and reviews to wfyi.org, the area’s PBS/NPR station.

HEALTH & WELLNESS

Get Organized With Rexall’s

New Health & Wellness Rewards App, Be Well ™

Keep better track of your wellness journey, and earn points on purchases!

By Courtney Hardwick

Imagine having a way to manage your day-to-day health needs, from keeping track of medications and ordering prescription refills to connecting to your essential health devices, all in one place. Rexall’s new Be Well™ app is designed to help you do just that – and reward you in practical ways at the same time.

Wellness. Simplified™ The Be Well™ app is designed to make it easy for you to manage your medications and stay on top of your health and wellness. With the Be Well™ app, you can: •

• •

•

•

• • •

onnect with and access your personal medication history C at every Rexall Pharmacy you use. That means you’ll always have instantaneous access to your most recent medication history whenever you need it.

Easily connect your health devices and view all the important information about your health in one convenient place.

Upload important documentation (diagnostic results, doctor’s notes, etc.) for your reference so you can share with your healthcare provider when necessary.

Make updates to your personal health records including updates to your conditions and symptoms, procedures, allergies, medications (including any vitamins and supplements) and vaccinations.

C omplete health self-assessments to understand your personal health risks for conditions like diabetes, hypertension, osteoporosis and more.

Save time by sending a photo of a new prescription to your Rexall pharmacist so they can get started on filling it.* Track the status of your prescription each step of the way and receive a notification when it is ready for pickup.

Set convenient times to pick up prescription refills.

With the Be Well™ app, all your health information will always be at your fingertips. With an understanding of your health history and accurate records to back it up, you will always have the details available – and confidence – you need to advocate for yourself.

Wellness. Rewarded™ Not only will the Be Well™ program help you stay organized when it comes to your health and wellness, but it also gives you the opportunity to earn rewards that can be redeemed for savings on future purchases. Using the Be Well™ app will get you access to great benefits like: • • •

arn reward points on every dollar spent at Rexall and E redeem 25,000 points to save $10 on your purchase.** Receive personalized digital offers on thousands of health, wellness and everyday essential products available at Rexall.

Redeem faster by shopping exciting Be Well™ promotional offers in Rexall’s weekly flyer.

Wellness is a lifelong journey, and Rexall wants to make managing your health needs as simple as possible. Download the Be Well™ app today to get started. To learn more, visit Rexall.ca/bewell.

* Rexall pharmacies will start getting your prescription ready as soon as we receive the prescription photo; however, we need the original prescription to finish filling it. In addition, in Alberta, Rexall pharmacies are limited to data entry and stock verification to comply with local requirements. ** Be Well™ points and redemption is not applied to prescriptions.

Brought to you by

COURTNEY HARDWICK is a Toronto-based freelance writer. Her work has appeared online at AmongMen, Complex Canada, Elle Canada and TheBolde.

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CELEBRATING CANADA’S LGBTQ2+ LIFESTYLE

KAYOOT

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Let’s just say that these will boost your outfits up at least 3 levels of chic, get no less than 5 mentions a day, and all of the attention in the room. hehe ;-)

These earrings are constructed using high precision laser cutting. Being only 3 mm thick, they are super lightweight. They are made from high quality acrylic and 925 sterling silver.

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KAYOOT.ca

PROFILE

Profile in Youth: Lily Overacker and Laurell Pallot Meet the recent high school graduates who organized a virtual prom for LGBTQ2S+ students across Alberta

By Courtney Hardwick

When schools closed and students were forced to finish off their school years from home because of COVID-19, two Alberta high school seniors, Lily Overacker and Laurell Pallot, saw an opportunity. Together, they organized a digital Pride Prom that gave LGBTQ2S+ students a safe place to interact with each other, meet new people, and celebrate their achievements.

As Overacker and Pallot head to university this fall and start a new chapter in their lives, they hope that LGBTQ2S+ students across Alberta who participated in Pride Prom know that their community will always be there to support them – and feel inspired to host events of their own.

How did you feel when you realized proms and graduation ceremonies wouldn’t be happening because of COVID-19?

Overacker: Mostly, I was disappointed that I wouldn’t get to celebrate the accomplishment of graduating high school with my friends and extended family. Part of me was also upset that I wouldn’t get to strut around small-town Alberta in my eccentric tux and give it a last hurrah.

Pallot: I would be lying if I said I wasn’t a little bit relieved. At the beginning of April when school was cancelled, it was hard to envision what the rest of the school year would look like, let alone graduation. Overall, I would still choose losing grad over having to complete the rest of Grade 12 in person.

L-R: Lily Overacker and Laurell Pallot

Where did you get the idea for the virtual prom and how did you make it happen?

Overacker: The idea was inspired by an American media company called Jubilee that held an event back in April for 2020 graduates.

This got us thinking about a possible virtual prom for Alberta and specifically LGBTQ2S+ students.

Pallot: After we started talking about the initial idea, I reached out to YYC Centre for Sexuality [Calgary] and was directed to email Hilary Mutch, their LGBTQ2S+ community engagement coordinator.

Overacker: We collaborated with many organizations from all over Alberta who work with LGBTQ2S+ youth to create an event that would be open to students from grades 9 to 12. Students who were interested were asked to sign up online.

Why was it important to you to hold an event specifically for LGBTQ2S+ youth?

Overacker: At this point almost all events for Pride Month – and the rest of the year – had been officially cancelled, which was a huge loss for the whole community. For LGBTQ2S+ students, graduation events can be stressful, especially in small communities like ours where they often stick closely to traditional gender roles.

An event specifically for LGBTQ2S+ youth can ease some of the stress and help everyone feel more comfortable presenting themselves authentically.

Pallot: At the beginning of the pandemic, there was a lot of advice for LGBTQ2S+ people focusing on ‘how to survive.’ We really wanted to organize a fun event that would not only be a distraction from the frustrating realities of COVID-19 but would also celebrate the LGBTQ2S+ community and provide a safe space for youth to meet new people.

What went into planning the event?

Overacker: During weekly Zoom meetings with Hilary, we worked through everything from the website, the event signup process and our social media presence, to plans for LGBTQ2S+ youth outreach and how to develop working relationships with organizations across Alberta. We also planned the many Zoom rooms for the event such as chill spaces for people to discuss queer reading and rooms that focused on music and fashion.

Pallot: We knew ensuring the safety of the participants was an essential part of an event like this, so we spent a lot of time on protocols. We had a zero tolerance bullying policy and asked participants to refrain from taking screenshots or sharing the Zoom links. We also disabled private messaging in the Zoom rooms to be sure nothing would happen we weren’t aware of. All of our participants were extremely respectful and we had no issues.

Overacker: We also had our own ‘Pride Prom Court,’ which was inspired by Buzzfeed’s Queer Prom. It allowed us to highlight some of the work done by graduates that has made Alberta’s queer community even brighter!

Pallot: We really wanted to highlight how amazing our Prom Royalty was, so the three people selected as Prom Court Royalty received $100 gift cards to one of our sponsors’ small business.

What did you learn from the Pride Prom experience?

Overacker: I am incredibly thankful for everyone who helped make this event possible. I hope in the future more LGBTQ2S+ youth are inspired to plan events and bring their own visions to life, since there clearly is a whole community out there ready to help.

Pallot: I think Alberta, especially rural Alberta, has a reputation that makes it difficult for a lot of queer folks to feel comfortable and safe. Although there are a lot of roadblocks for the LGBTQ2S+ community in Alberta, being a part of Pride Prom really showed me that our province is also full of support and that there is a vibrant, queer community here too.

Peace Tea proudly supports inclusivity, diversity & love

COURTNEY HARDWICK is a Toronto-based freelance writer. Her work has appeared online at AmongMen, Complex Canada, Elle Canada and TheBolde.

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FAMILY

MY SISTER’S HAVING MY BABY A personal tale of family, surrogacy, and access to fertility care for LGBTQI+ intended parents

By S. W. Underwood

I’ll carry a baby for you.

SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2020

Words that seared through the ambient noise of children chattering in boisterous play. Words that slipped through the cracks of a wall built to defend from the agony of my inability to carry my own child. Words spoken by Meghan, my baby sister and now a mother of five of her own children.

Words are not often elusive for me. I’m a writer, a teacher and a researcher: words are my trade. Yet I sat in silence for minutes, I don’t know how many – vibrations tingling like electricity through my nervous system. Did I hear her right? Was this a joke?

But she was serious. Very serious. She’d carried five babies through three pregnancies (the last a blessing of three!), and now she was done – done with her own babies, but ready to help me with mine.

What motivates my sister to help me and my partner create life is hard to capture in writing. And I know that trying to understand the depths of this gesture of love, this gift of life, will be an unending project I experience until my last days.

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Often when I tell this story to friends, colleagues and strangers, their eyes swell with reverence at the lengths people will go to demonstrate their love. Their faces swell with the promising hope of a thriving community of LGBTQI+ parents, empowered by the communal compassion of incredible women like my sister.

In these moments, I try to sit with the joy my sister and I are creating in other people – one we experience ourselves, of course.

I try to breathe in their romantic reflexes and impassioned notions of what happens next.

To most people, the announcement of a pregnancy is the beginning of a journey, the start of a path travelled by ancestors immemorial.

You can imagine, then, the weight of sharing what happens next.

Achieving pregnancy with a gestational surrogate woman in Canada is not easy. While legislation in Canada makes surrogacy legal, it must be altruistic. This means that you cannot compensate a surrogate or egg donor, though there are still fertility- and pregnancy-related expenses that can be costly, typically between CAD $40,000 and $80,000. In some provinces, subsidies are available for the first

FAMILY

round of in-vitro fertility treatment. For example, in Ontario where I live, the Ontario Fertility Program (www.ontariofertility.ca) offers a one-time reimbursement for fertilization and embryo transfer into a surrogate carrier. In our case, this would cover about $10,000 worth of expenses.

The author and his sister Meghan as children.

This would be a modest help in an otherwise costly experience for us, to be sure, but my sister and I are not eligible for this subsidy: the funding is available only if the surrogate carrier has her own OHIP coverage. My sister lives in British Columbia and no such program exists under the B.C. Medical Services Plan.

Finding a fertility clinic is no easy task either. While groups like Health Canada, the Canadian Fertility & Andrology Society, and provincial physician colleges regulate fertility medicine across the country, practice varies from one clinic to the next.

Because my sister has five young children, we thought it best to find a fertility clinic near her.

Yet, at each of the Vancouver fertility clinics where we sought medical help to begin this journey, we were devastated to be turned away at the door.

Fertility clinics develop a model profile for the surrogate carrier, including an age range, that she has been pregnant before, that she is not a dependent alcohol user, and so on – the kinds of things you would expect. But they also specify a body mass index (BMI) range. My sister, recently having given birth to triplets, met all criteria except BMI. Specifically because of this, clinics in Vancouver would not support us in our pregnancy journey.

Shut out by fertility clinics in Vancouver, we turned to Anova Fertility in Toronto, where we became enamoured with Dr. Marjorie Dixon, whose compassion, intelligence, and commitment to women’s health and LGBTQI+ people creating families uplifted us. She affirmed that my sister’s commitment to building a family with us was an existential treasure – a gift she would help us realize.

Dr. Dixon reasoned that although my sister’s BMI was not in the ideal range, it was only one aspect of her health – one we would empower her to meet.

I appreciate that she immediately and sensitively recognized the social, cultural and economic context we bring with us. She demonstrated a clear understanding that LGBTQI+ people have real challenges: when intended parents like my partner and I come looking for medical help, it’s not going to be easy for us to immediately meet all the criteria for intended parents and their surrogate carrier (my sister, in this case). Rather than turning us away because we were not perfect candidates according to the standard guidelines, she promised to work with us, to work with my sister, to empower us to succeed on this fertility journey to parenthood.

“Personally, I am deeply familiar with what it means to be marginalized.

I am a Black, female, LGBTQI+ CEO in the medical realm,” explains Dr. Dixon. “I founded Anova because, as both a physician and an IVF [in vitro fertilization] mother myself, I recognized a gap in access to care, and so made it our mission to stand for all Canadians looking to grow their family. Each journey to parenthood is unique and should be treated as such; guidelines are in place to

ensure quality care occurs – but we must acknowledge that they aren’t one size fits all.”

In addition to this sympathetic dedication from Dr. Dixon, we were comforted by the warmth of the clinic staff, their competent and earnest commitments to LGBTQI+ family planning, the confidence and expertise of the medical care team, and the breadth of knowledge about third-party programs (especially egg donor agencies, surrogacy agencies and legal firms).

Today, we wait for the COVID-19 pandemic to run its course as our fertility treatments remain paused, the effects of COVID-19 on embryos and pregnant women unclear. While I wish to tell my audience that the obstacles end here, we were slowed again by further complications entirely unrelated to the biology of reproduction: soon before the pandemic hit, Health Canada changed its regulation of frozen oocytes (ova/eggs) imported from other countries. While this was done to ensure that the treatment of donors was safe and their quality of care high, it has been a source of delay for people like us who were mid-journey. A year before this, through an agency and under medical guidance, we had selected 12 frozen oocytes from two donors in Eastern Europe at a cost of about CAD $13,000.

While we intended to combine these with our sperm to create embryos, the new regulations created bureaucratic complications that have yet to be resolved.

Variation in clinical practices and commitments to LGBTQI+ family creation, limited funding opportunities, and even unforeseeable viral pandemics are just some of the obstacles we have had to navigate on our journey towards parenthood. As a community, Canada should work hard to reduce the financial and institutional burdens on all intended LGBTQI+ parents. It’s not the least we can do: it’s the best we can do.

At night, I sit in the quiet of my garden, seeking wisdom in the steady movement of life all around me. In the darkness, I see my sister’s smiling face as she mouths the words, I’ll carry a baby for you. I practise patience, believing that one day, I will hold my baby in my arms – a baby my sister will labour to bring into this world. Let us honour her courage, her thriving devotion to love, and her compassionate investment in life itself. Let us be the best we can be, just like my sister.

S. W. Underwood is a writer, teacher and researcher at the University of Toronto. They live in southern Ontario with their partner, three cats, two birds and many begonias. They hope to become a mother in the coming years and to continue caring, studying, teaching and advocating about and for misfits everywhere.

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Something Has To Br eak

Reaching the end of your rope is often the only way things can get better

By Jumol Royes

What if falling apart wasn’t a bad thing?

I reached a personal breaking point recently when I started experiencing some pretty scary symptoms similar to those associated with the coronavirus.

Upon my doctor’s advice, I went to a local assessment centre, got tested, and waited anxiously for a couple of days to get the results. They came back negative,

SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2020

thankfully; my doctor chalked it all up to stress and some other flu-like bug, and ordered me to rest, relax and reset.

But I knew intuitively there had to be more to it than that.

Life has been overwhelming lately, and from talking to friends and colleagues and watching the news, I know I’m not alone in feeling this way.

On top of dealing with the pandemic and periods of social isolation, I’ve been processing some intense emotions as a gay Black man bearing witness to countless instances of bigotry and brutality both here at home and around the world. I also have two senior citizen parents who need constant support and 16

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tending to, challenges related to changes at my day job, freelance writing opportunities that I don’t want to miss out on, coursework to keep up with at the University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies, volunteer commitments that are very important to me and, in my almost non-existent free time, I try and incorporate some self-care. Add it all up and reaching a breaking point suddenly makes perfect sense.

The last few months have been punctuated by periods of outbreak and heartbreak. COVID-19 lifted the veil and forced us to confront unspeakable and uncomfortable truths we’ve been avoiding as a society. From the abhorrent conditions in some of our long-term care homes to the value we place on essential workers and everyday heroes like nurses, grocery store clerks, personal support workers and seasonal migrant workers, the way we’ve been doing things is more than a little bit broken. At the time of writing this, Canada had recorded 8,874 deaths related to COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic, according to the Government of Canada’s official website. Just let that number sit with you for a moment.

While COVID-19 lifted the veil, that veil was torn to shreds by the murder of George Floyd – an unarmed Black man – at the hands of police in Minneapolis. Watching the life literally being drained out of a man was more than any of us could bear, and it moved millions to take action and demand justice and accountability. If we look closely, we’ll realize that the systems and institutions that govern our society today are more than just broken; quite a few of them were built on foundations of anti-Black and anti-Indigenous racism. It’s hard to swallow the sad reality that they’re functioning exactly the way they were intended to…by design.

When something breaks, it’s usually viewed as frail, fragile, faulty or feeble. But what if we were able to discover the beauty in reconstructing what’s been broken?

The coronavirus has created what can best be described as a collective breakdown in our health, work, families, social networks and communities. Instead of staying stuck in breakdown mode, what if we decided to use the opportunity to seek breakthroughs and find new ways to relate to our bodies (by exploring more sustainable methods of food production), minds (by examining the content we create and consume) and souls (by expending less energy focused on our own egocentric needs and more energy on meeting the needs of the vulnerable and marginalized among us)?

Doing that could transform how we interact with ourselves, the planet and each other.

It’s also safe to say that we’ve all felt our fair share of heartbreak and we’ve been traumatized by recent acts of racial hatred and violence. Imagine what we could accomplish together if instead of being paralyzed by the heartbreak, we all gave our hearts permission to break open, responded with empathy and compassion, and took at least one real action to help bring about meaningful change?

The Japanese have a centuries-old art called Kintsugi or Kinsukuroi that I’m beyond enamoured with. It’s basically the art of putting broken pieces of pottery back together again by mending them with lacquer embellished with gold. Rather than discarding a broken object, the idea is to embrace its brokenness and hopefully create something more beautiful and valuable than that which existed before.

“Not only is there no attempt to hide the damage, but the repair is literally illuminated,” says Christy Bartlett in Flickwerk: The Aesthetics of Mended Japanese Ceramics.

Something has to break. That’s a given. But if it has to break, shouldn’t we do everything possible to ensure it breaks for the better?

JUMOL ROYES is a Toronto-based storyteller and communications strategist with a keen interest in personal development and transformation and a love of all things Real Housewives. Follow him on Twitter at @Jumol.

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p er f e c t fi t: a b u t t toy b u y i ng gui d e If you can’t love your bum, how is it going to love somebody else?

By Bobby Box

Public health officials have acknowledged that, pandemic or not, people need sex. They ask only that when we engage in sexual activity, we reduce risk by limiting partners, wearing masks and using glory holes. Despite these leniencies, many still aren’t willing to take the risk. As such, sex toy sales have skyrocketed. Outlets like Forbes and the Toronto Sun have reported that companies have as much as doubled their sex toy sales since the pandemic started.

I myself have used this time to better my bottoming skills using the arsenal of anal sex toys I’ve been given as a sex writer. In fact, I’ve recently written about this experience in graphic detail.

Since such valuable intel shouldn’t go to waste, I’ve put together a helpful guide to all the different types of anal sex toys, as well as the sensations they provide and which products will make your booty hole a happy hole.

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Before you purchase, consider the following: Purchase your sex toys from a reputable source Sex toys are not regulated in Canada and the US, meaning companies can produce toys made with potentially toxic materials. Some big box sites, like Amazon, sell knock-offs of popular sex toys made with these harmful chemicals. Don’t skimp; purchase your product from a credible retailer.

Beware of porous toys While porous materials aren’t necessarily toxic themselves, they contain tiny pockets that trap dirt and bacteria, meaning they can’t be fully sterilized. If you use a porous toy with a sexual partner, slip a condom over top to avoid spreading potential infection or a pre-existing STI. Some more common porous materials include jelly rubber, PVC, cyberskin, TPR/TPE and elastomer.

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Avoid toxic materials Phthalates, harmful chemical agents that make plastic more transparent and flexible, can still be found in sex toys. People tend to experience allergic and chemical reactions when they come in contact with phthalates, which have also been linked to cancer. Other toxic materials to avoid: timethytin chloride, phenol, carbon disulphide, toluene and cadmium.

Lube TF up Use a whole lot of lube – you can’t have too much of it, especially when it comes to butt stuff. Lube the toy and your hole. Lube the inside of your hole using a finger if you have to. Your bum doesn’t self-lubricate and the skin is extremely sensitive, so a quality lubricant is essential and, despite what you’ve seen in porn, spit won’t cut it. If your toy is made of silicone, opt for a water-based or hybrid lube since silicone lubricant deteriorates silicone materials (due to the way silicone molecules react with other silicone products).

Make sure the toy has a flared base Your bum is like a vacuum and if you use a toy without a flared base, it can get sucked inside your body… meaning a hospital visit to have it removed. Remember the saying, “Without a base, without a trace!”

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types of anal toys Butt plugs Butt plugs are cute cone-shaped toys with flared bases. They’re generally favoured by those who enjoy the feeling of fullness in their rectum – this fullness can also be useful for anal stretching and Kegel exercises. Butt plugs are inserted (slowly, and with lots of lube) and that’s it, you just keep it there.

While they can be used for penetration, they are not designed for this as other anal toys are. Many people wear them while doing chores, running errands, or before a hookup (to open up); some will even wear them to work. IN recommends: We-Vibe Ditto, Njoy Pure Plug.

Anal beads Unlike butt plugs, anal beads provide pleasure through movement. In terms of their appearance, remember Wilma Flintstone’s necklace? It’s basically that, but they go in your ass. When playing, insert the toy one ball at a time, as many or as little as you like (some have graduated sizes); then, when you’re ready, pull them out and enjoy – you’ll experience wave after wave of pleasure as each bead brushes along your internal and external sphincters. It’s important to always buy anal beads with a ring or base at the end, because we don’t want them getting lost in there. IN recommends: Fun Factory’s Flexi Felix, Titus Anal Beads.

Prostate massagers A prostate massager looks a lot like a vibrator (which you can also use for anal stimulation), except it boasts a curve designed to stimulate the prostate (aka the “P-Spot”). The prostate, for those unfamiliar, is a walnut-size organ located roughly two to three inches inside the rectum towards the belly button, and is chock full of nerve endings. When stimulated, prostate orgasms can be up to 33 per cent stronger than if you just fondled your shaft. To use, insert the toy at an angle, with the curve pointed upward, then carefully push deeper until you meet resistance.

When comfortable, turn the toy on, play with the vibration patterns and intensities, and let it do its thing. Keep the toy in while your hands explore elsewhere, or push it in and out – it’s your call. IN recommends: LOKI Wave, LELO Billy.

Anal training kits Anal training kits are a series of toys (usually four butt plugs) that are great for beginners. Generally speaking, it’s recommended you stick with a toy for a few days to a week, and when comfortable, move to the next size up. A great way to test if you’re ready is to insert a finger alongside the toy you’re currently using. If it fits without any discomfort, that’s your green light to upgrade; if it’s painful, stick with the smaller size for a few more days. IN recommends: Dosha 3-Piece Glass Anal Plug Kit, Master Series 5 Piece Anal Trainer Set.

Keep it clean You’ve had your fun; now it’s time to clean up. Fortunately, doing so is simple. You can wash your sex toy using hot water and soap. For a deeper clean, you can sterilize non-porous/non-vibrating toys by boiling them, placing them in the top rack of a dishwasher, and running the sterilize cycle. Instead of soap, use a solution made of one part bleach to 10 parts water. You should make sure you sterilize your toys from time to time, though it’s not necessary after every use.

has shown that stimulating your prostate helps to rid the body of prostatic fluid, which can build in the glands and enlarge the prostate. Prostate stimulation also helps the gland function better and encourages blood flow to the area, making it a great way to fight impotence. For individuals with vulvas, anal toys can also stimulate the G-spot through the rectum.

The benefits of butt stuff If you have any reservations about using anal sex toys, that’s totally fine. We aren’t taught about stimulating our bums like we are about our other anatomy, but research

Our bums are a universal part of the anatomy that, when stimulated, can produce some of the most intense orgasms. Hopefully, with the information provided above, you can feel confident exploring the back door using the toy that best suits you.

BOBBY BOX is a writer and certified sex educator who has been published in, among others, Greatist, Playboy, The Advocate, NewNowNext, Them. and Askmen. He is Grindr’s sex columnist, and is very active on Instagram and Twitter. Follow him at @bybobbybox.

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LET’S TALK ABOUT TRANS CHARACTERS ON FILM

We dig into the progression of trans characters in movies and TV, and how they’ve changed from being comedic punchlines, to victims, to main characters

By Bianca Guzzo

SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2020

When Lieutenant Lois Einhorn’s true identity as a trans woman is revealed at the end of 1994’s Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, all of the characters start a chain of puking out of shock and disgust. The movie is 26 years old, but this scene has stuck with the transgender people who witnessed Jim Carrey trying to “cleanse” the memory of being intimate with her by suctioning off his mouth with a toilet plunger – as if using a toilet plunger on his mouth was somehow a solution to finding out he had kissed somebody who happens to be transgender.

Executive producer Laverne Cox in the Netflix documentary, Disclosure, which examines the history of transgender representation on-screen over a hundred years

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When FX’s Pose premiered in the summer of 2018, people instantly knew it was different from anything else they had ever seen before.

The show, in case you need a reminder, is about the ballroom scene in New York City in the 1980s and 1990s. Aside from serving up absolutely stunning vintage looks every week, Pose also does something that television shows and movies had previously shied away from. Their show is full of queer, transgender and non-binary characters who are played by queer, transgender and non-binary actors. It doesn’t stop there either. The show is produced and sometimes written by trans women Janet Mock and Our Lady J. Shows like Pose and Orange Is the New Black have shown that trans stories are multidimensional. The fact that a character is transgender is an aspect of the storyline, but their journey through episodes also goes deeper than the fact that they are transgender.

For years we saw drag queens playing characters on various Law & Order episodes who were, for the most part, sex workers who were usually killed in horrible gruesome ways. If they weren’t in that situation, there was also the stereotypical patient on medical shows who was in critical health and dying, usually due to some complication having to do with their transition. These characters, often with single-episode story arcs, provided viewers with a very surface level portrayal of bigger issues. They usually didn’t go much further with the fact that cases like these aren’t anomalies – and there’s a much bigger conversation we need to have about why that continues to happen.

Some could argue that roles like these nonetheless played a part in getting to where we are today, and that trans people were still being represented on a prime-time television show. However, these roles need to be acknowledged as problematic for their storylines, and for what they ultimately contributed to the narrative of transgender and non-binary storylines in popular culture. Giving trans and nonbinary people the space to tell their own stories is long overdue, and when we finally got to see storylines that trans people had a hand in shaping, we got entirely different characters, stories and dialogue.

When Orange Is the New Black premiered on Netflix back in the summer of 2013, Laverne Cox starred as trans inmate Sophia Burset. Her arc through the show’s run mentioned her transition from time to time, but it wasn’t the only aspect of her character that the show focused on. The same can be said for Hunter Schafer’s groundbreaking role as Jules in HBO’s Euphoria. Jules’ origin episode on the show told the story of her character pre-transition, being mistreated, and exiled by family members. It followed up to her current self, still dealing with a unique set of issues. Orange’s Sophia and Euphoria’s Jules both have depth, development and

unique plotlines that drive their stories forward. Both Orange and Euphoria are progressive shows that include a trans character, as well as other queer characters with unique stories.

Pose takes it a step further. The whole show is centred around the ballroom scene in 1980s/1990s New York City, and the trials and tribulations that many of the queens and trans women experienced in this time. While its time setting isn’t exactly current, the storylines are more innovative than shows we’ve previously seen.

It’s entertainment, but it’s also a jumping-off point for a lot of younger LGBTQ+ viewers to learn about the history of ballroom culture that was the blueprint for the drag culture, and slang terms that are currently at the forefront of popular culture. As well, it gives the show’s younger viewers a glimpse into the kinds of lives trans people lived, and the adversity they faced not only in society as a whole, but even within their own communities.

The main cast of Pose is mostly made up of trans actresses and trans non-binary actors. MJ Rodriguez, Angelica Ross, Dominique Jackson and Indya Moore continue the conversation beyond their scripts. They are constantly highlighting other trans stories and artists, and share information about the staggering number of Black trans women who continue to be killed. The show is set 30 years ago, but it remains connected to issues the transgender and nonbinary community continues to deal with to this day. The second season included a multiple-episode storyline after Angelica Ross’s Candy Ferocity was murdered. These episodes dug deeper than we had previously seen in trans storylines. Candy left behind a family, friends and a legacy. She was more than a body that detectives stood over in the first five minutes of a murder mystery show.

Ace Ventura was an absurd character in an over-the-top comedy movie. Jim Carrey recently admitted that he had some regret over the transphobic scenes in Ace Ventura, saying that if the movie were being made today, the same scene probably wouldn’t have been included in the movie. But Lois Einhorn’s final scene was still the first time some people saw a trans character in popular media, and everyone’s instinctual reaction in the movie was to puke. Which, in turn, was supposed to make the audience laugh.

Shows like Pose, Orange Is the New Black and Euphoria have taken steps in the right direction to diversify their casts and storylines. Because of the trans people behind the scenes writing, producing and directing the stories, and the trans actors playing trans characters, we are seeing a shift in the types of stories being told. Not only are we getting more genuine storylines, but the characters are multidimensional, and they are at the centre of some of the most important and moving plotlines in the show. Hopefully we will continue to see more trans stories, played by trans actors, on popular shows.

Trans storylines are powerful and deserve more than to be a punchline to a joke. Disclosure proved that when these extraordinary characters are written by trans writers, and played by trans actors, these stories go much deeper, and are part of a bigger narrative that demands and deserves our attention.

BIANCA GUZZO is a writer based out of the GTA. She spends her free time watching Trixie Mattel makeup tutorials, though she has yet to nail the look.

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Netflix’s groundbreaking documentary Disclosure: Trans Lives on Screen discusses this scene and many others that have contributed to the narrative that transgender storylines tended to follow in movies and television. It hasn’t been until recently that we’ve seen a shift in how stories of transgender characters are portrayed, and how their stories are told. Trans characters are finally main characters on television, and they’re played by trans actors, and we should talk about that.

COVER

The

LGBTQ Debt To The Civil Rights Movement Racialized communities have played a crucial role in the fight for LGBTQ liberation; let’s not forget that

By Olivia Nuamah

SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2020

The omission of the role of Black, Indigenous, Latinx and homeless street youth from the narratives of the beginnings of the LGBTQ movement has laid the groundwork for misunderstanding the connections between historical and contemporary violence. The role that slavery and the ensuing fight for civil rights played in the birth of the LGBTQ movement is crucial to understanding the pathway Black and Latinx communities carved in the fight for LGBTQ liberation.

The civil war in America was fought over slavery; when abolition of slavery failed to have the intended effect of uplifting Black lives, civil rights legislation was introduced to reinforce Black equality with federal oversight. The LGBTQ community was one of the most significant beneficiaries of Black and Latinx activism across America, activism that was fuelled by discrimination across race, sex and gender lines for almost a century before Stonewall.

At the time of Stonewall in 1969, the civil rights movement in the US was at its end, with legislation introduced five years earlier.

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From police brutality to employment and free speech, Black people were being mistreated and losing court battles, while the same laws yielded wins for white gays and lesbians. Across the country, riots had been started by trans, Black, Latinx and street-involved youth without the same countrywide calls for change or movement building momentum. Stonewall was no different in form and content from the incidents of civil unrest already happening across the country at the time: the only difference was the presence of a majority white, gay, male audience armed with legal wins, a countrywide network and a membership of thousands.

There is virtually no information about the lives of the Black and Latinx participants who were documented as inspiring the unrest at Stonewall. We know precious little about their families, their friends or their lives outside of The Stonewall Inn and riot. The narrative of Stonewall limits our collective past to the deeds of white gay men, while further silencing the historical role of Black and Latinx communities in the building of the LGBTQ movement.

But in fact, slavery, emancipation and the civil rights era had a

We are still fighting those fights today. In 2020, US President Donald Trump attempted to turn back employment protections for trans communities; the Supreme Court found it prohibited under the Civil Rights Act 1964. Even in Canada, one of the first court wins in 1977 was the repeal of immigration law barring ‘homosexuals’ from entering Canada, and today our support for LGBTQ refugees is unrivalled. The key to winning key courtroom battles for the LGBTQ community has been race-inspired legislation which grew a nationwide network to organize and strategize the dismantling of policies that continued LGBTQ oppression.

A look back Channing Joseph, a student at Columbia University, uncovered a headline in the Washington Post dated April 13, 1888, that reported, “Negro Dive Raided. Thirteen Black Men Dressed as Women Surprised at Supper and Arrested.” In what was the first documented case in the US, William Dorsey Swann was arrested for impersonating a female. Swann had been born into slavery in 1858 in Hancock, Maryland, and was made free when Emancipation was declared in 1863. Swann began organizing the first known ‘drag balls’ in Washington, DC, where all of the attendees were Black, male and former slaves, and came dressed in drag. The arrest was the earliest instance that could be found of anyone referring to themselves as the ‘Queen’ of a drag event, or ‘drag queen.’ A book about Swann by journalist Channing Joseph, called The House of Swann: Where Slaves Became Queens, is due out in 2021.

the first Americans to regularly hold drag balls, and the first to fight for the right to do so. Arguably, they laid the foundations of contemporary queer celebrations and protests. Most importantly, we see where we get the tradition of Black trans communities and drag queens coming together to affirm one another and, by extension, the whole community.

Civil rights protests open the door to justice Just under a century later, in 1948-1950, the Mattachine Society began in Los Angeles. At the time, being ‘homosexual’ was illegal, and an arrest led to a loss of employment, social isolation, a public outing and a criminal record, all in the face of corrupt police practices seeking to make examples of men. The Mattachine Society was created by gay men so they could meet, share stories and develop strategies to protest and fight back. In 1952, the Society mounted a defence against the arrest of a senior figure in the group, and won. In 1958, One, the magazine published by Mattachine, fought an injunction that accused it of being “obscene, lewd, lascivious and filthy.” Without hearing oral arguments, the Supreme Court decided that the magazine fell under constitutionally protected speech; within a few years, the Society had chapters across the country and a growing membership.

As Joseph describes it, “When the police burst through the door of the two-story residence in northwest Washington, D.C., just half a mile from the White House, they discovered dozens of black men dancing together there, wearing silk and satin dresses made ‘according to the latest fashions’ of 1888. Most of them were former slaves or the children of slaves.” As soon as the partygoers saw the officers, the dancing stopped and the men scattered – except for William Dorsey Swann, the self-proclaimed ‘Queen’ of the gathering. It was Swann’s 30th birthday celebration, and there was no intention of running away. Unlike the others, Swann – who, according to the Washington Post, was “arrayed in a gorgeous dress of cream-coloured satin” – ran frantically towards the officers in a vain attempt to keep them from entering the room. “The queen stood in an attitude of royal defiance,” The National Republican noted on its front page. Swann, “bursting with rage,” told the police, “You is no gentlemen,” and a brawl ensued.

In 1896, Swann was falsely arrested and convicted for running a brothel, but contested this conviction legally. This now stands as the first defence of the right for LGBTQ people to gather.

Does Swann’s example identify the start of the LGBTQ movement as beginning with a trans woman of colour born into slavery? If so, we need to revisit the whole history of when the movement began, where it came from, and who its leaders were.

Swann came of age at a time when an entirely new form of freedom and self-determination was being imagined: the first generation of Black people emancipated from slavery. Swann and guests were

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profound impact on the struggle for LGBTQ liberation: each attempt to equalize the life chances of Black people ended up paving the way to equality for some in the LGBTQ community.

COVER By the start of the 1960s, civil rights protests of Black and Latinx communities had spread across the US; Stonewall was the 60th of 63 riots between 1960-69. The first time the LGBTQ community rioted in the US was on the West Coast, at a 24-hour donut shop in LA called Cooper’s Donuts, a popular hangout for trans communities.

In May 1959, police decided to check the identities of patrons to ensure they were not being “disorderly” by identifying as a gender not indicated on their government-issued ID; they arrested two gay male sex workers and two drag queens. When the police attempted to put all of them into the back of their car, the patrons began to protest; the unrest lasted hours.

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Dewey’s Restaurant was a chain of hamburger restaurants in Philadelphia frequented by Black trans women and drag queens.

The staff refused to serve them, claiming that they were driving business away. On April 25, 1965, 150 young Black and Latinx people, dressed in what they called “gender non-conformist clothing,” were turned away. Three refused to leave; the police were called, and they were arrested. Over the following week, Black LGBTQ youth of Philadelphia organized an information stand and picket at the shop’s doors, which led the owners to commit to ceasing their discriminatory practice.

By the late 1960s, the civil rights movement had inspired mass racial violence and rights-led protests all over the world. For Black trans women, Latinx, and street-involved youth, it ignited a real rage sparked by their historical unequal treatment, Stonewall was the end of this period, not the start.

Each example of unrest is a direct response to a society that sought to suppress both their race and sexuality while brutalizing them for being poor and street-involved. Violence against these groups surged across the US. Simultaneously, white gay men were winning courtroom battles in their fight against mistreatment by police and the rampant discrimination they faced in employment and in other areas of public life.

When the Mattachine Society won the right for gay men to drink in bars in 1966, The Stonewall Inn was one of the first gay bars to open its doors. Initially for men only, it eventually allowed drag queens and trans communities, but their presence was still probable cause for police harassment and regular raids. In a 1989 interview with Marsha P. Johnson, who played a key role in the Stonewall uprising, she talked about how the police would line people up, search them, throw them out and shut the bar down. Randy Wicker (another prominent gay rights activist in the ’60s who was being interviewed at the same time) playfully asked Marsha, “Were you one of those that got in the chorus line that would kick their heels up at the police like the Ziegfeld Folly Girls or the Rockettes?’

Marsha responded seriously: “Oh no, we were too busy getting thrown over cars and screaming in the middle of the street because they closed that place.”

In August 1966, unrest took place at Compton’s Cafeteria in San Francisco. At the time, the presence of drag queens and trans people was probable cause to raid bars – so, instead of going to gay bars, the youth of the trans and drag communities frequented one of Gene Compton’s Cafeterias. In an attempt to deter trans women and drag queens, the staff would not serve them; they decided to picket. On the first night of the picket, restaurant employees called police, reporting that protesters had become loud and disruptive. Marsha P. Johnson’s dad, Malcolm Johnson Sr., was born in New Most of the protesters were part of the gay youth organization The Jersey in 1910 to parents who had fled southern states. Oppressive Vanguard (the first known gay youth group), the majority of whom laws would turn Black people into the internally displaced, migrating were trans or drag queens. The police arrived and attempted to to the northern and western reaches of the US in search of a better arrest one of the trans women protesting. She threw her coffee in life. They did not find the lives they had hoped for, and by the late his face, and the peaceful protest instantly transformed into a riot. ’60s, if you were racialized anywhere in America, you most likely 24

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participated in some form of civil unrest. For Marsha and her family that meant belonging to the African Methodist Episcopal Church, founded on the principle of racial equality, to which she remained devoted all her life.

Another key activist following the Stonewall uprising, Stormé DeLarverie, had a slave mother who worked for her white father’s family. Both Johnson and DeLarverie left home as young teenagers and remained poor and vulnerable all their lives, ultimately dying penniless. Without knowing the place of these two activists in the narrative of slavery and the Great Migration, the implications of their racial and sexual identities are erased from the story of the birth of the LGBTQ movement. They have been reduced to the people who got angry in the moment and sparked the majority white audience to protest, which then went on to inspire the worldwide movement.

Marsha revealed in a 1989 interview that she’d “been going to jail for like 10 years before the Stonewall. I was going to jail ’cause I was, I was originally up on 42nd Street. And every time we’d go, you know, like going out to hustle all the time, they would just get us and tell us we were under arrest.” Born in 1945, she would have been 14 years old when she started hustling on the streets of Manhattan as a drag queen. Marsha described what they were chanting the night of the Stonewall Riots. “We just were saying, ‘No more police brutality,’ and, oh, we had enough of police harassment in the Village and other places.” She was not talking about the bars of Manhattan because she wasn’t allowed entry there – she was referring to her sex work, where police would regularly harass and assault Black and Latinx people. Now and then in the interview, she alluded to a life outside of The Stonewall Inn and Greenwich Village but, sadly, we are only afforded glimpses.

The whole interview gives us clues as to how Marsha was treated by her white contemporaries. At one point there was a small accident and Randy, whose floor Marsha slept on for eight years, said to her, “God, you’re so dumb.” Marsha responded (half-sarcastically), “You

think so?” In those few words, he summed up the condescension she was treated with while lauding her activism. These were his thoughts on Street Transvestites Action Revolutionaries (STAR, the organization founded by Johnson and Sylvia Rivera): “It was a bunch of flaky, fucked-up transvestites living in a hovel and a slum somewhere calling themselves revolutionaries. That’s what it was, in my opinion. Now Marsha has a different idea. They had an apartment; they didn’t have the money to keep up the rent, and they began fighting over who was using drugs or who was paying rent or who was taking whose makeup. And, I mean, it got to be pretty lowlife and pretty ugly….”

David Carter, author of Stonewall: The Riots that Sparked the Gay Revolution, after much argument about the role of racialized trans and sex workers in the riot, had to make a public statement to clarify and correct his own error. He concluded that “most of the crowd in the vanguard on the Uprising’s first night were white men, though Marsha P. Johnson and Zazu Nova, both transgender, were black, and there was some black and Latinx youth among the homeless street youth who were the first to lead the charge against the police. Several Latinx men were also among the first to resist or attack the police. A Puerto Rican man named Gino [Castro] threw one of the first big objects outside the club, uprooting a large stone from the pit of a tree.”

When the audience was majority white and male with clear legal victories and the civil rights movement behind them, and a nationwide reckoning to affirm their action, they participated in civil unrest. When the most marginalized in the community rose in anger across the country, there was not the same sense of unity; those identities were as marginalized then as they are now. Tacitly, the part of the LGBTQ community who could see that the roadmap to broad acceptance was to be achieved by separating themselves from more marginalized members were right, and they achieved what they sought. But for the rest of us, the fight continues.

OLIVIA NUAMAH is a Toronto-based senior leader and advocate who has run organizations in the nonprofit and government sectors in Canada, the US and UK. She has extensive experience developing policies and programs to tackle social and economic exclusion with a focus on race, gender and sexual identity.

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ELIAD COHEN GETS PHYSICAL IN MASSBRANDED The Israeli model and entrepreneur/party wizard has a new capsule collection

By Scott Starace

Eliad Cohen is the ideal of masculinity: he’s strong, rugged, gear. They talked about collaborating on a capsule collection and handsome, and he doesn’t take himself too seriously. The Israeli met up in London this past January to finalize the details. actor, model and entrepreneur, who is best known in the LGBTQ community as founder of the international festival brand Papa Party, “It was important that each piece stood out in a way that appeared embraces his queerness, is playful and provocative. effortless, casual, sexy and cool,” Luciano says.

All of these characteristics and more are reflected in Cohen’s brand-new athleisure capsule collection for the urban man on the go.

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In the collection, he partners with Massbranded, the high-end men’s streetwear label that pushes boundaries. Massbranded for Eliad Cohen features seven styles that can be worn to and from the gym, for casual nights out, while travelling, and on the dance floor.

Items in the Massbranded for Eliad Cohen capsule include the Reach Zip Up Hoodie and Track Pants (notable for their zippered side pockets, rib knit cuffs and mesh drawstring cords); the Renegade Sweatshirt and Shorts (featuring reflective tape at the sides that add a flashy flare to the pieces); the Shuttle Short (crafted from perforated neoprene with piping side details that flash when light hits them); and the Flex T-Shirt and Short (featuring black perforated neoprene panels with grey/tan taping details that reshape a man’s body to its maximum form).

Inspiration for the collection was drawn from Cohen’s own military background: three years of army service in the Israel Defense Forces.

“I wanted the pieces in the collection to feel like the uniforms used Cohen says he couldn’t be happier with the final result. “The for physical training during military exercises, drills and off-duty collection is so comfortable. I’m wearing it everywhere.” time,” he explains. “It was also important that every piece seamlessly combined my personality, passion for fitness and way of life.”

“It is an extension of me and my personal style, and I’m excited to share it with my papitos.”

Massbranded is the design house headed by designer Mass Luciano.

With more than 15 years of experience in the fashion industry, Luciano has worked with international brands including Guess, Rock & Republic by Victoria Beckham and Lee Jeans. His rise to fame began in 2015 when he competed for and won the titles of, Massbranded for Eliad Cohen is initially, Mr. Gay Hong Kong and, ultimately, Mr. Gay World. The available at Massbranded.com. accomplishment inspired him to launch his energetic namesake Follow on Instagram at @mass_branded. streetwear label, Massbranded.

Cohen and Luciano were introduced by a mutual friend in Los Angeles last year and bonded over their shared interest in military 26

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STYLE Cohen wearing pieces from the Massbranded for Eliad Cohen collection - Photo by Damijen Photography

SCOTT STARACE received his BA in English from Winthrop University in Charleston, SC. Today, he resides in Atlanta, Georgia. In addition to reading and writing, he is a motor bike enthusiast and spends long days on the racetrack, working as a control rider and coaching a youth star race team.

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FASHION

New Rules With Canada’s provinces continuing to reopen their economies, life is starting over with a new set of style rules

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PHOTOGRAPHER: Ivan Otis FASHION DIRECTOR: Paul Langill HAIR: Paul Peirera MAKEUP: Julia Valente WARDROBE STYLIST: Maria Chowdhery PRODUCTION ASSISTANT: Arsenio Tungol MODELS: Austen Dickinson and Joshua Cunningham

A special thank you to our models and the crew for operating under the strictest guidelines including wearing PPE, practising thorough sanitization and respecting social distancing during this fashion shoot.

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FASHION

CUSTOM RAINBOW MULTI-COLOURED SEQUIN FACE MASK: Mayer Man

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GREY THREE QUARTER LENGHT WOOL JACKET, CHECKERED WOOL PANTS AND GREY LONG SLEEVE SWEATER: Christopher Bates SHOES: Florsheim

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FASHION

MULTI-TONES BELTED RAINCOAT AND BLACK LONG SLEEVE SWEATER: Christopher Bates BLACK TWO-DIMENSIONAL JOGGER: Xian SILVER STUDDED SPHERE NECKLACE: Hudson Bay BLACK AVIATOR SUNGLASSES: Eyes On Church Optical BLACK SOCKS: Top Man STRAPPED SNEAKERS: Hip and Bone

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GREY TIE DYE VEGAN LEATHER MOTO JACKET AND JOGGER: Xian WHITE HOODIE: Hip and Bone LINEN BLEND IVY CAP: Top Man GREY SOCKS: H&M WHITE SNEAKERS: Hugo by Hugo Boss

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GREY BOMBER WITH SPIKE DETAILS AND BLACK SUEDE JACKET: Xian ORANGE CREW NECK SWEATSHIRT: Hip and Bone VEGAN LEATHER LEGGINGS: Top Man BLACK SNEAKERS: Hugo by Hugo Boss

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CHARCOAL GREY HOODIE AND SPECKLED GREY WOOL OVERCOAT: Hugo by Hugo Boss STUD EARRINGS: Pagoda

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MEN’S PRINTED COWL NECK SWEATERS: The Lu Bava Collection BANDANA PRINTED FACE MASKS: Michael Estes

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CUSTOM RAINBOW MULTI-COLOURED SEQUIN FACE MASK: Mayer Man BLACK LONG SLEEVE MESH STRIPED TOP: Matthew Jewson STUD EARRINGS: Pagoda

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BLUE TWO-PIECE SUIT AND LIGHT BLUE SLIM-FIT DRESS SHIRT: Christopher Bates PERSONAL PPE EYEWEAR: Cosmetic World DRESS SHOES: Florsheim

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BLUE PINSTRIPED SUIT JACKET WITH NAVY BLUE DRESS SHIRT: Hugo by Hugo Boss PERSONAL PPE EYEWEAR: Cosmetic World

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TAN CASHMERE THREE QUARTER LENGTH DRESS COAT, LONG SLEEVE CREAM ZIPPER TURTLENECK SWEATER, GREY WOOL PANTS, BROWN BELT AND SOLID BLACK SNEAKERS: Hugo by Hugo Boss

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MUSIC

NICK STRACENER BEATS HIS BLUES We sit down with the DJ and remixer

By Connor Davenport

Nick Stracener views dance music as therapy and a way to escape life’s biggest hurdles. It’s why he was particularly drawn to remix Lindsay Lohan’s “Back To Me” (a song about shutting out negative energy and rediscovering self) and Lady Gaga’s “Fun Tonight” (a song Gaga wrote about the dissolution of her relationship, and how her mental health and experiences with fame also affect her love life).

It is a relatable message to Stracener, whose social media notoriety often invites criticism. He uses his platform, nearly 200K strong, to show off his bodily accomplishments and release any heavy matters weighing on his mind. Most significantly, his own mental health.

“People with mental illness come in all shapes, sizes and colours, and I want to reach others who may be going through similar struggles,” he says.

“You can never really know what someone’s going through in their personal life or what’s going on in their head. Severe depression and anxiety are hidden diseases and I have found that the best way to fight it is to get it out in the open. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

Especially in this time of COVID…

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What’s the biggest thing weighing on your mind right now?

For me, it would have to be: when will I finally be able to have a live gig, safely, again?

It’s an understatement to say that we’re living in weird and uncertain times. What impact has the lockdown and the larger state of the world had on you and your work?

Just before COVID struck, I was on quite an uphill climb. The bookings were rolling in from all over the USA and Canada as well as international festivals. I was really looking forward to getting out there and showing people what I can do. But life has taken a turn for the worst. All of the gigs I had planned have been cancelled.

I’m currently spending way more money on being a DJ than I’m making from it. It’s not cheap, with equipment and promotion, etc.

Have you had to retool how you work to stay afloat?

Oh yes. Since I can’t play live, I’ve been concentrating on creating virtual sets and remixes of popular songs. At least it helps to keep my name out there.

Have you discovered a brighter side to the pandemic?

I try to be as optimistic as possible, appreciating the fact that I have had more time to focus on creating music and working on myself, internally and mentally – but I have to admit I am really struggling right now. It seems as if there’s no end in sight and it’s quite scary.

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What are you doing to help you cope?

Spending time with close friends has been helpful. Also my music, and maybe a little bit of comfort food.

Are you taking a COVID break from exercise like the rest of us?

Up until a week ago I was exercising and being pretty consistent, but I just had surgery done so I have to take a few more weeks off until I can fully get back into it.

I saw on Facebook that you were posting pics from a hospital bed! What happened?

I needed umbilical hernia surgery.

Who was there to help you through it?

My good friend Davi [itzjustdavi on Instagram] picked me up from the surgery centre and stayed with me a few days and ran a few errands for me. My parents came up to visit for a day as well. And several other of my friends brought me food. I’m lucky to have a good support system.

Can we get personal on another topic? I also read on Facebook that you’re now listed as single. Was your relationship impacted

by COVID-19?

I’ll tell you what I can tell you. I don’t think the outcome would have been any different if COVID hadn’t happened. Sometimes people just grow apart and it’s better to go in separate directions. I’ll always have love in my heart for him and I wish him nothing but success and the best in life, but I believe we exhausted all options and things weren’t working and it was better to split.

What is the biggest lesson you learned from the relationship?

I’ve learned to always follow my heart. I don’t regret anything about our time together because it was a learning experience that will get me one step closer to finding the person that I’m truly meant to be with. I now know the qualities that I need in a partner in order for it to work.

Are you appreciating this time alone?

This time alone has been difficult, especially with everything that’s happened in my personal life. The breakup has definitely amplified all of my gloomy feelings. But I continue to learn more and more about myself every day and the things I need to improve to become the best person that I can possibly be.

Can you tell us about your OnlyFans page? What goes on behind the locked window?

(Laughing) I always tell people this: it’s only 10 bucks and I think it’s worth every penny. You’re going to see everything.

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Has the page been helping to pay the bills during the pandemic?

In addition to my DJing and producing, I’m a flight attendant. Sadly, none of those jobs are paying much at the moment. So yes, the OnlyFans page definitely supplements my income.

What new mixes are you working on now?

I recently released my ‘Dance with Life Again’ set and it’s full of lots of classic circuit music and some oldies and new songs as well. I also threw in my brand new Gaga remix, which I’m super happy with the way it turned out.

Do you eventually hope to make original music?

That’s the goal, yes. It’s a work in progress. I think I will have an original song produced this year by the absolute latest. I have a lot of ideas. I really want to find a vocalist who I can connect with as friends and make beautiful music with, together.

How will you spend the rest of today?

I could use a nice scrub bath, but I have these stitches from the surgery so I can’t. Instead, I’ll probably eat! I ordered from Uber Eats earlier and it should be here soon.

Follow Nick Stracener on Instagram at @thenickstracener.

Photos by Jay Fuertez

CONNOR DAVENPORT is a freelance writer who loves working from home with his puppies on his lap. He was born in Hawaii, raised in Pennsylvania and resides in California. His work has appeared in numerous places in print and online including AXS, Add To Bucket List, Examiner, Leisure, MAAFBox and other websites.

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GAY CONSERVATIVES ARE VALID AND COULD BE A POWERFUL ASSET FOR RIGHTS ADVOCACY Popular narratives around gay conservatives just don’t get them

By Adam Zivo

Gay conservatives (“gaycons”) have historically been universal outcasts. Until recently, they were outsiders within their own political circles, given tolerance without acceptance. At the same time they also were, and continue to be, ostracized by large swaths of the LGBTQ community, which has mythicized them as self-loathing traitors. The cultural homelessness of gaycons isn’t a trivial issue.

Despite being publicly erased from the rainbow, conservatives constitute a significant subset of the LGBTQ community. As an example, a 2014 Gallup Poll found that, in the United States, 20 per cent of LGBTQ individuals identified as conservative, while 33 per cent identified as moderate and 46 per cent identified as liberal.

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While some gaycons can be self-loathing, the reality is that the majority identify as conservative on the basis of other issues. Their conservatism coexists with support for LGBTQ rights. You can be progressive on queer rights while also believing in conservative approaches to fiscal discipline, economic development, foreign policy and smaller government, among other things. Synthesizing an LGBTQ identity with economic conservatism isn’t that hard, but reconciling it with social conservatism is more difficult and appears to be rarer. It does occasionally happen, though, such as at the intersection of queerness and faith, where one can see constructive attempts to mediate religious freedom with queerness.

Others retain aspects of social conservatism by upholding some elements of traditional family values, prioritizing the sanctity of family while expanding the definition of family to be gender-blind.

What makes this possible is the underlying assumption that political beliefs don’t have to be tightly bundled together, and instead ought to be evaluated individually. When beliefs are allowed to be judged on their own merit, rather than being forced upon someone as the admission cost of a political tribe, you get ideological hybridization.

Hybrid political ideologies can take on all sorts of forms, creating mixed identities and alliances. Oftentimes they’re innocuous. We tend to accept that politics can be complicated and that people’s personal beliefs don’t neatly fit into partisan categories. There is nothing particularly strange about someone who, for example, both fears government overregulation and also wants robust protections for minority rights.

Hybrid politics becomes controversial when it involves identities that are thought to be owned by specific ideologies. For instance, the far left had been the earliest and loudest champions of gay rights. Though, contrary to popular belief, it never monopolized LGBTQ advocacy, its leadership in forging the rights enjoyed today is indisputable. Hence it seems strange that gaycons exist. Where 42

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is the loyalty? The problem with this attitude is that it treats rights advocacy as transactional patronage, where liberation is politically and ideologically conditional. “We will free you, but only if you adopt our beliefs and lend your support to our full agenda of causes.”

Failure to meet these conditions is met with ostracization.

At the same time, there ought to be some expectation that people, once freed, will act morally. It would understandably be infuriating to advocate for a group only for its members to use their newfound freedom to become Nazis. That being said, cruelty and violence can be condemned without letting political liberation degenerate into a patronage game. The worst of the Trumpist gays can be condemned by their bigotry alone, without evoking obligations rooted in sexual orientation. It would even be preferable. To say that cruelty is made worse when perpetrated by the marginalized is to also say that, when committed by an oppressor, it can retain a modicum of acceptability.

What counts as violence and cruelty, though? For some in the LGBTQ community, and particularly in the queer activist class, it is defined as deviation from far left ideology. For this subpopulation, to erase gay conservatism is to purge evil within one’s own home.

It is justified through the crusade for justice. That other people may have their own conceptions of justice, or that they might share the same broad goals but want to achieve them through different means, is inconceivable. Embedded within this attitude is a domineering impulse that resembles what is seen in religious evangelists who wish to convert the world.

The LGBTQ community is not a political hive mind, nor will it ever be. Like any community, it is composed of real human beings who hold complex belief systems. It naturally experiences a degree of ideological diversity. This diversity is inconvenient for anyone who wishes to monopolize community power. The workaround is to stigmatize, exclude and erase competing groups. In this light, framing gaycons as traitors can be understood as one part of the community weaponizing patronage activism against a rival, consolidating power by invoking a historical debt that could never be consented to, seemingly can never be repaid, and should never have been treated as debt in the first place. Militant confidence in one’s own moral correctness can blind people to the ethical problems of this kind of behaviour.

This stigmatization can be experienced not just by individuals, but entire communities. The recent vilification of cisgendered gay men can be understood through this lens, as a vendetta against a

For gaycons, there is a resentment against the expectation that their sexuality ought to define them and compel them to support political positions that they genuinely don’t believe in. Why should your sexuality be instrumentalized for someone else’s agenda? No one likes having political debt used coercively against them, and this complicates how gaycons choose to position themselves. Should you align with the right, which matches most of your values but can hate your identity? Or should you align with the left, which celebrates your rights but, at the same time, shares few of your other values and wants to turn your sexuality into a yoke? Do you advocate for LGBTQ acceptance in conservative spaces, or do you advocate for conservative acceptance in LGBTQ spaces?

The flawed status quo As conservative spaces have become more tolerant of LGBTQ rights, it has become much easier to be openly gay in them. A reciprocal tolerance of conservatism in LGBTQ spaces does not seem to have emerged, at least insofar as mass culture and institutional beliefs go.

Consequently, for some people it is easier to be gay in conservative spaces, carving out a niche there, than it is to be conservative in LGBTQ spaces. Within the safety of these niches, gaycons advocate for LGBTQ acceptance, often engaging with audiences that don’t understand them and sometimes dislike or distrust them. Advocates in these spaces lack the benefit of preaching to the choir. It can be exhausting, but it is necessary work.

Social advocacy can be broadly broken up into two missions: raising the roof and raising the floor. To raise the roof is to be the vanguard of new rights, to push the envelope of what is accepted and protected. To raise the floor is to ensure that support for new rights, once given a foothold in society, is shored up so as to prevent its erosion. The two processes work in tandem. Without the vanguard, rights advocacy stagnates, but without the rearguard, progress becomes unstable as greater chasms open up between believers and non-believers.

Gaycons, as insiders, better understand conservative communities and so can more effectively frame LGBTQ rights to them in a way that makes sense to them. They’re uniquely positioned to constructively engage the parts of society that have the most room to grow. They’re uniquely equipped to raise the floor. This advantage is, however, undermined by the current way that conservative gay activism exists in society. Crucially, conservative niches of activism tend to be divorced from the larger ecosystems of LGBTQ rights advocacy, cutting off conservative activists from expertise, networks and resources that would empower them to make change. This is not an accident. Many LGBTQ activists are reluctant to engage with conservative groups and purposefully starve them of assistance.

To use my own life as an example, last autumn I was exploring opportunities to connect Conservative MPs with LGBTQ activists, the goal being a series of roundtable discussions where each side could better understand each other’s priorities and constraints. I can still recall the disappointment I felt in the reaction when I spoke with some veteran activists whom I thought of, and still think of, as mentors. “This could help them win the election,” they warned. “Don’t betray our allies.” Elsewhere, I was warned that some activists, if they caught wind of my initiative, would actively

try to sabotage it. My optimism for targeted social progress ran up against what read, to me, as the prioritization of partisan politics over community safety. Some activists seem to almost prefer that conservatives, as a whole, maintain regressive attitudes on LGBTQ rights, since it’s a useful electoral liability.

Gaycons have their own shortcomings, too. They are sometimes exclusively focused on validating their existence within the wider LGBTQ community. While this need for validation is important and makes sense given intense stigmatization, it’s a form of advocacy that doesn’t have much relevance to other members of the community. What does it matter to a non-conservative whether gaycons are stigmatized or not? In fixating too much on their own issues, gaycons can come off as whiny and parochial.

Conservative LGBTQ advocacy groups are usually embedded in partisan political infrastructure, which makes it hard for them to be impartial and undermines their credibility. A vicious circle ensues: isolation makes them rely on partisan resources, but reliance on partisan resources makes them more isolated. Log Cabin Republicans are an excellent example of this. As a group that advocates for LGBTQ rights within the US Republican Party, they are enormously influential as a bridge between conservative and LGBTQ spaces. At the same time, their dependency on Republican resources exacerbated internal tensions on how to treat Donald Trump, causing several of the organization’s leaders to resign. In the end, a lack of independence helped political tribalism win out, causing the group to stay mute in situations where they should have been fiercer defenders of LGBTQ rights.

Lastly, gaycons are too complacent with allowing themselves to be poorly represented by extremists and minstrels. Take Milo Yiannopoulos as the perfect example. He was once one of America’s most visible gaycons. Ideologically vacuous, his persona was cobbled together entirely from provocative stunts, such as his Privilege Grant for white men. Listening to him, it would be surprising to learn if he had any real thoughts at all. Yet his outrageousness, calculated to inflame everyone’s worst suspicions about gay conservatism, was mesmerizing and kept him in the limelight. He even went so far as to marshall Boston’s pathetic “Straight Pride Parade.”

Rather than call Yiannopoulos out on his peroxide circus, gaycons let him run amok. Perhaps they had no choice. The Trump era, particularly in its first two years, has uplifted all sorts of caricatures at the expense of adult politics. Gay conservatism may have just suffered the same fate as American conservatism in general, being co-opted by a juvenile radicalism that is more interested in “owning the libs” than advocating for good governance. Yet even with these extenuating circumstances, the damage remains. Yiannopoulos is gone, but more serious gaycons, who were either unwilling or unable to publicly denounce him, must deal with his memory in the public imagination.

A better alternative A more effective kind of gaycon activism is possible, but making it happen would require work and maturity. First, gaycons need to expand their value proposition to society. Rather than solely fixating on their own stigmatization, they need to forcefully communicate how they can be important supporters of rights advocacy. This may be difficult for a group that, by its very nature, is filled with people who tend to see their orientation as incidental to who they are, but 43

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demographic that had the audacity to become ideologically diverse rather than toe partisan lines.

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gaycons need to work past that and meet this ethical responsibility.

The easiest way to do this is to reframe their intimate connection to conservative communities as an asset rather than a liability.

sanctity of human life and empowering people to take personal responsibility for their health. Small shifts in framing like this can do wonders for opening up people’s minds.

In order for that to work, gaycons need to call attention to the importance of securing popular, broad support in democratic systems. The fact is that, within democracies, it is difficult to unilaterally impose your agenda. Pushing your priorities, and then entrenching them, obliges you to earn the consent of other parts of society, including those you don’t get along with. Many within the LGBTQ community forget this, since rights have traditionally been won through litigation, in effect using the judiciary to circumvent popular will. Judicial activism has its limits, though. It may set the basic contours of legal rights, but you cannot legislate from the court. The bulk of governance happens elsewhere, in spaces more susceptible to the influence of public opinion.

Coming up with methods for strategic engagement isn’t something that can be done just from an armchair. Understanding what works best with different communities is ultimately an empirical project. That’s why gaycons need to take leadership in producing new knowledge on this front. That means conducting in-depth interviews within their networks, communicating their own lived experiences, and creating forums where conservative audiences and mainstream LGBTQ activists can talk and better understand each other, however difficult that may be. The methods matter less than the results, with the ideal output being concrete, evidence-based and actionable recommendations that improve activist engagement with conservative audiences.

Gaycons also need to engage in more advocacy work within both LGBTQ and conservative communities, advising them on how to talk to each other. Many conservatives exoticize and fear the queer community based on harmful stereotypes. Gaycons should commit to deconstructing and contextualizing these stereotypes to conservative audiences. At the same time, many LGBTQ activists live in cultural bubbles and expect their ideological frameworks to be universally applicable. Within the queer community, gaycons need to hammer an important point: what works in the downtown core of a major city may not work in other contexts. The language used at a poetry event in a gay bookshop may not be appropriate for a rural mom. Woke jargon might not translate well in a predominantly racialized and working class inner suburban neighbourhood.

Respecting context matters.

Finally, gaycons need to more actively champion LGBTQ rights in conservative communities. If most LGBTQ activist infrastructure is based in downtown urban centres, then how does one reach people in the sprawling expanses of rural North America? You can’t change the minds of people you can’t reach, and it’s very difficult to reach people if you aren’t in contact with the institutions present in their everyday lives. This is where gaycons can make a difference, by diplomatically fostering connections between LGBTQ organizations and social institutions that would otherwise be impossible to reach.

When it comes to engaging mainstream LGBTQ activists, helping them think outside their bubble is just one part of the solution.

The other part is actually building the strategies to adapt LGBTQ activism for different audiences. Take PrEP accessibility as a case study. Many enjoy framing it according to sexual liberation. Great, but evoking hookup culture isn’t a fit for everyone. With more conservative communities, it’s more productive to focus on the

For this to work, though, the rest of the LGBTQ community needs to rethink its attitudes as well. This means less stigmatization and more constructive engagement. This means having the maturity to accept that, whatever political hostility might exist at the grand ideological level, any opportunity to collaborate for the sake of community safety is one worth exploring. It means not attempting to starve or sabotage conservative-led human rights activism. It means being willing to listen to the insights offered by gaycons, and being willing to share resources where appropriate. Disagreements and fighting will always happen, but simmering down, if not ending, this cold war will help keep everyone safer.

ADAM ZIVO is a Toronto-based social entrepreneur, photographer and analyst best known for founding the LoveisLoveisLove campaign.

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How COVID-19 Hurt QUEER PEOPLE Much More Than STRAIGHT PEOPLE A snapshot of how COVID-19 impacted the LGBTQ community

By Paul Gallant

For her birthday last February – her last big night out before the COVID-19 lockdown hit – Tanja-Tiziana and her posse descended upon karaoke night at The Beaver, the beloved queer bar on Toronto’s West Queen West.

“It was so rammed, I remember thinking, ‘I’ve never been sweat on by so many people.’ It was such a great feeling,” she tells me. A few weeks later, the COVID-19 lockdown temporarily closed The Beaver, and then, on July 11, it announced it was closed for good. Established in 2006 by queer legend Will Munro, the place was, for artsy homos, an essential service. But, like so many businesses built on our urges to socialize, it couldn’t survive months without revenue when the coronavirus hit.

“Even if we get through this, we don’t even have those meeting spaces to look forward to. We didn’t even get to say goodbye to them,” says Tanja-Tiziana.

Work aside – which is a hard thing to set aside if you’re a tip-dependent bartender or a drag queen struggling to pay the rent – our personal lives have also been dramatically disrupted by self-isolation, quarantines and social bubbles. And let’s not even talk about the Pride that never was. Not to stereotype too much, but while straight people are in their comfort zone bunkered down with their nuclear family, many queer people draw their strength from a community they interact with at nightclubs, bars, arts events and parties. “It’s not so much a social life thing as a connective thing with the city, with the community,” says Tanja-Tiziana. “There are people you don’t even know well, you may not even talk, you might just make eye contact across the room, but you feel a part of things together in a safe space.”

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DJ and event manager Craig Dominic had been doing at least two or three gigs a week in Toronto’s gay village when the lockdown closed the clubs. Since the closures, he’s been spinning The COVID-19 crisis has slapped the entire world upside the at online parties, doing digital dance nights, but the money is head, and here in Canada took its most deadly toll on seniors and not in the same league and the experience is not as satisfying. temporary foreign workers. But economically and emotionally, “There’s something to be said for the collective energy in the it’s hard to deny that LGBT people were the hardest hit by “the room you get from DJing,” says Dominic. “Everything’s less gaydemic.” The industries where queers are highly represented human than it used to be.”

– hospitality, nightlife, travel, arts and entertainment, health and beauty – were the industries hardest hit by lockdowns and Rolyn Chambers usually goes out at least three nights a week, shaken consumer confidence. A photographer specializing in plus hosting his Dahnce Kahmp party at Toronto’s Buddies artsy queer stuff, Tanja-Tiziana’s gigs dried up completely. in Bad Times theatre, plus, plus, plus. Then, nothing. Artist, “You have the entire arts and culture sector just taken out at the graphic designer and author of the book The Boy Who Brought knees. Nobody’s working, nobody is creating anything except Down a Bathhouse, Chambers started doing an online version web-based stuff.” For her part, Tanja-Tiziana reinvented her of Dahnce Kahmp, not for money – he had no mechanism one-woman business to focus on archival work, which she for accepting donations – but literally to keep his spirit alive. could do at a distance.

“Going out and socializing is in my blood. It’s something that

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INSIGHT

keeps me healthy, believe it or not, and young, believe it or not,” says Chambers. “I need to dance at least once a week.”

Performance artist Ryan G. Hinds was about to go into rehearsals for a National Arts Centre production of Paradise Lost – a prestigious opportunity he had been working towards for years – when COVID-19 came a-cancelling. “It’s been emotionally difficult and I’ve taken a financial hit,” says Hinds. “I still have these moments when I think the industry isn’t coming back for years, and any career momentum that we all had was for naught.

Those thoughts don’t go away.”

Hinds has been able to do some online work, and by the summer had picked up a gig in a theatre production that took place outdoors. Socializing digitally has helped, though it’s been no substitute for real-life contact. I asked Hinds what he thought of the government-sanctioned social bubbles of 10 “committed” people or less, which seemed, to me, to have in mind clearly defined families rather than messy gay friend/fuckbuddy circles.

“It’s a conundrum, right, because the queer community is all about chosen family, but the reality of the situation is we need to care for each other, and how I’ve been showing my caring right now is staying away from people,” says Hinds. “I’ve made my choices about staying home and quarantining. But the friends I know who are being more social or being sexually active – that’s not something they undertook without a fair amount of thought beforehand.”

When I talked with Toronto-based makeup artist and beauty expert Dino Dilio in July, he hadn’t held a brush in his hand since March 13. He was able to pivot his business, doing

online consultations, then sending customers his recommended products, then walking them through the application during a video chat. It’s a lot more work, a lot less fun. “What I do is a very personal service,” says Dilio. “I feel like a bartender or a therapist for these women, and I really miss that.”

But, as Dilio points out, LGBT people are better than most at pivoting. Coming out, dealing with homophobia and discrimination, living through the AIDS crisis: most of us are adept at both reinvention and risk reduction. “We’re very resilient, very strong. I mean, look at what we’ve lived through,” Dilio says.

Chambers says that for gay men of a certain age, the horrors of COVID-19 are nothing compared to the AIDS crisis. “We’re used to fighting back, and part of fighting back in this case is finding different ways to be out there and do your thing,” says Chambers.

Being queer has given many of us the survival skills necessary to get through a pandemic in one piece. “It’s been fantastic,” says Jennifer Gillmor, an artist, musician, body worker and yoga instructor. Because she was eligible for the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB), she was able to focus on a larger creative project that required a lot of solitude. “I’ve enjoyed something like an artist’s residency from the comfort of my own home,” says Gillmor.

Fortunately for Gillmor, she was in creative mode, not the performance mode that’s also a key part of her passion. Like so much of life, timing is everything, even the timing of a pandemic.

PAUL GALLANT is a Toronto-based writer and editor who writes about travel, innovation, city building, social issues (particularly LGBT issues) and business for a variety of national and international publications.

He’s done time as lead editor at the loop magazine in Vancouver as well as Xtra and fab in Toronto.

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Where In The World?

Re-evaluating your priorities is the first step to getting travel back on the calendar

Singapore Peranakan Shophouses by Darren Soh

SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2020

By Doug Wallace

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TRAVEL Hot-air balloon flights in Turkey by Doug Wallace

Now that you can’t go anywhere, where do you want to go? Moving beyond the pandemic reality, travellers will have fewer choices, more safety concerns and more inconveniences, all while likely to be strapped for cash. As retooling the nuts and bolts of international travel will make it more complicated than it already was, you’re going to need the whole experience – from door to door – to be worth the aggravation.

Adding to all the conjecture that fills our news feeds, I predict people will fall into either of two camps: those determined to tick a refined bucket list, and those who simply want the comfort that comes with revisiting a destination they’ve already been to. Where has proved meaningful enough to warrant your return?

I thrive on “newness,” sometimes to a fault, always searching for new hotspots, resorts or experiences, seldom going anywhere twice. But many people, particularly young families, welcome the convenience a familiar destination brings. “We can relax right away” is the reason I hear most often. Now I’m back-pedalling on my “return policy,” because I think the Great Reset includes travel immersion, a deeper and more memorable dive into a place you’ve visited before.

When people discover I’m a frequent flyer, the first question is: What’s your favourite place? It’s a loaded question that I answer with another question: Do you mean a city or a region or an adventure place or what? I’m trying to get more of a sense of their travel personality. The world is a big place. I do have a few places that hit all the high notes: a cultural heritage unlike my own, a heightened idea of hospitality, better-than-good food, interesting things to do…and soft beds.

I would go back in a heartbeat I head up the hills of Ecuador to Otavalo on New Year’s Eve, checking into Hacienda Pinsaqui – a real ranch and not just some tourist trap. It’s the type of heritage home that’s been welcoming guests since 1790, South American savior Simón Bolívar among them. There’s a picture in the front hall of the owner’s grandfather entertaining Frida Kahlo. Close to midnight, a bonfire is lit to burn life-size effigies for good luck, a doll that represents the Old Year. A loud brass band churns out fast marches, cymbals crashing; people in funny costumes are dancing. That the resort doesn’t burn down is a miracle. The moment is seared into my mind.

Ditto my first full-fledged Northern Lights experience, on an Arctic cruise to East Greenland. A plucky expedition leader arranges for a night landing of the passengers, a feat that’s organized with military precision. The team rings a stretch of shore in a calm bay with glow sticks, and we boat over to lie on the soft grass and watch the aurora borealis. Nose tucked in my parka, I drift into a kind of trance following the river of colours shooting across the sky – a religious experience, and I’m basically pagan.

Some more snapshots: just outside the bustle of modern central Singapore, after a day of wandering the market hawker stalls and weaving in and out of the shophouse boutiques and the Hindu and Buddhist temples, we pull up plastic chairs to a big patio table at No Signboard Seafood in the Geylang district. We eat chili crab until we’re stuffed, my trousers fully gunked up despite the giant bib. A server pushes around a cart of frosted mugs, transferring everyone’s warm beer into icy-fresh glasses – perfect hospitality in the simplest of gestures.

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Walking into an Indigenous Emberá village in Panama’s Darién rainforest, I see how simply they have lived for centuries, holding on to their roots in a way very few cultures have. My heritage ecotourism moment isn’t just fascinating, it’s a reminder that tourism doesn’t have to water down a secluded culture – it can help prop it up. Tourism empowers the Emberá, giving them sway with their government, instilling a sense of pride.

It just goes to show: whether you’re watching shirtless men pulling your supper out of the ground in Maui, or hopping into a balloon basket before dawn in the Turkish countryside or ordering a martini on the 52nd floor of the Tokyo Park Hyatt, perfect little travel moments are still out there, waiting to land in your memory bank one day.

Ecuador’s Amazon Rainforest by Doug Wallace

SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2020

Do I have a bucket list? Yes: the Canadian Arctic, South Africa, South Asia and more East Asia. Make a list for yourself, even if

Guna Yala, also known as San Blas, in northeast Panama by Doug Wallace

After swimming with wild stingrays just outside the Bora Bora lagoon in French Polynesia, I jump into the aquamarine-blue water to snorkel with a lemon shark and its entourage of blacktip reef sharks, happy for the lunch we bring with us – and that lunch is not us.

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TRAVEL Icebergs of South Greenland by Doug Wallace

it’s only a mental one. I have a forget-it list as well: all the gaydangerous places. I realize this is not helping the LGBTQ people who live in these unenlightened countries, but I need to feel safe when I travel.

Bora Bora by Doug Wallace

At the opposite end of the scale, the gay-all-day spots like Puerto Vallarta, Provincetown, Palm Springs and Fort Lauderdale are amazing places in many respects. But a steady diet of them? Too much pudding for me, although I can easily see why people would flock to them.

Maybe travel is completely off your list, given this year’s stifling circumstances – too expensive, too iffy, too much hassle. I hear you if you want or need to continue to travel in place. But maybe you can use travel as an excuse, a reward after so many months of staying home.

I’m already researching my next trip, planning it now and rolling it out when the storm subsides – and it will. Remember all the things you love about travel in the first place and try not to worry about the unknowns. The mystery has always been more than half the fun of travel anyway.

DOUG WALLACE is the editor and publisher of travel resource TravelRight.Today.

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THAI ISLANDS: Off-The-Beaten Path For Queer Travellers

Recharge your mind, body and soul in a queer-friendly setting Mental, physical and spiritual rejuvenation is what we all need in these challenging times; when international borders reopen, head out to the Thailand islands of Koh Samet and Koh Phangan to recharge your mind, body and soul in a spectacular and queer-friendly setting.

Koh Samet is an island named for the tree that grows in abundance along its white sanded shores. If you want to travel like a local in Thailand, it is the place to go. A favourite spot for tourists and locals alike, Koh Samet is the perfect place to explore when you are ready to escape the hustle and bustle of Bangkok. It’s located close to Thailand’s capital, so you can leave the city in the morning and be enjoying cocktails by noon.

With dozens of waterfront resorts such as luxurious Paradee and Ao Prao, bungalows and even beachside camping, you will be sure to find something that fits your lifestyle and budget.

While the entire island as well as Thailand itself is queer friendly, Sai Kaew beach is the place to go if you are looking to vacation with the community. Join a game of beach volleyball and work up an appetite, then visit seafront restaurants and enjoy dinner on the beach. Sunbathe on the beach, or beat the heat and nap in a shaded hammock during the day before strolling to the Silver Sand Bar, an open-air venue and dance floor at the nearby Silver Sand Hotel. The Silver Sand attracts tourists and locals alike, and is especially popular on weekends.

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Looking for more parties and adventure? Why not visit the world-famous Koh Phangan, known for its monthly full-moon parties. Gay travellers from around the world head to the crescent-shaped Haad Rin Beach to join a crowd numbering in the tens of thousands each month. The white sand beaches, lit by thousands of lanterns, become your dance floor, with music of every genre playing well into the night.

Not there during the full moon? No problem. While all of Koh Phangan’s beaches are welcoming to LGBTQ+ communities, three stand out in popularity: Bottle Beach, Haad Yao Beach and Salad Beach. Bottle Beach is more secluded and is a

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favourite with backpackers. If you are seeking for a laid-back vibe, it is the place for you. Looking for an outstanding outdoor experience? Haad Yao is known in Koh Phangan as the perfect spot due to its natural beauty, warm waters and pristine beach.

Snorkel at the coral reef or visit one of the dive schools and try your hand at scuba diving. There is also snorkelling to be had at Salad Beach, a hidden gem that’s tucked away into its own bay, surrounded by lush green cliffs and bordered by mountains and sparkling turquoise seas. Once you are done exploring Koh Phangan during the day head to lesbian-owned bar and bistro L’Alcove at Hingkong Beach. At L’Alcove, you can take in the sunset while sipping cocktails, and then enjoy an impressive fire show and live music.

If you are looking for a place to stay, the island offers a diverse array of accommodations for every type of budget.

The affordable For You Guesthouse, a gay-managed B&B, offers affordable rooms upstairs and a laid-back bar downstairs with a range of cocktails; they are known for their crepes and burgers. At the other end of the scale is the luxurious Anantara Rasananda Villas, a place for romance and well-being where true indulgences are influenced by the local culture and the intimate beach location.

Whether you visit these islands for the duration of your stay in Thailand or just make it one stop on your tour, the waterfalls, jungle and natural beaches are not to be missed. Recharge your mind, body and soul in this tropical paradise, and return rejuvenated and refreshed.

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FLASHBACK ABC’s Campy Soap Makes Its Television Debut (September 13, 1977)

SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2020

Described simply as “the story of two sisters, Jessica Tate and Mary Campbell” (Katherine Helmond and Cathryn Damon), Soap was an American sitcom that originally ran on ABC from September 13, 1977, until April 20, 1981. The show was created as a night-time parody of daytime soap operas, presented as a weekly half-hour prime time comedy.

Soap’s pilot episode featured story threads of homosexuality, gender reassignment, patricide, racism and multiple affairs, including a mother and daughter unwittingly sharing the same tennis-pro lover.

Jaws dropped over the raunchy content, a Newsweek article referred to it as a “sex farce” and implied it featured a scene of a priest being seduced in a confessional (it didn’t), parent and religious groups organized letter-writing campaigns, and affiliate protests and advertiser boycotts were announced. In fact, it was almost cancelled before it even aired.

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One of the biggest controversies was over the show’s gay 20-something character Jodie Dallas (Billy Crystal), who was one of the first recurring gay characters on an American sitcom. (He was not THE first – that honour goes to a short-lived show called The Corner Bar that aired on ABC in 1972.) The character of Jodie had religious groups up in arms, but the National Gay Task Force and a group called the International Union of Gay Athletes also weighed in with their own concerns about how the character perpetuated stereotypes, such as his desire to have a sex change.

When Soap premiered on September 13, it aired with a warning.

ABC had cut its advertising rates for the show and 18 affiliates had washed their hands, saying no prime-time Soap. (It ran in their late-night hours.)

But the scandal, and the coverage, paid off. Soap was a hit and it turned the stars, especially Crystal, into household names

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